Flightless Bird
by Nichelle Awanata
Summary: Bella has been living with her dad for a while, the Cullens are the new ones in town, and everything goes smoothly, until Bella goes missing. Normal pairings. SM owns everything.


It was a miserable day in Forks. The rain hadn't stopped pouring since 6 in the morning, and it was so heavy that a walk from the front door to the car had drenched me like a stint in the shower. There was no reason for me to attend school today; in English I had already completed my _Romeo and Juliet_ essay, in Trig we were doing review, Gym was never worth going to for me, and Biology would be a lab I'd done back in tenth grade in Phoenix. Charlie wanted me to go though; he didn't like the idea of me missing school, however unimportant I knew it would be.

I drove slowly, letting my mind soar above the clouds, as my windshield wipers feebly attempted to rid my window of rain. I should've walked. It was so heavy I could hardly see anything, and was going twice as slow as usual. By the time I got to school I was late, along with three or four other people who hadn't considered what the torrential weather would do to their driving ability.

When I got inside, I waved to Ms. Cope and walked towards my first class. As I predicted, we were getting a work period for our essay, so I took an inordinately long time to hang up my coat and get settled at my desk. I pulled out my essay, and looked over it a few times. Aside from a lost comma, it was fine, so I pulled out my Trig and began working through that. I would have to find something else to occupy me later. When the bell rang and I started to proceed to my next class, Angela came and linked arms with me.

"Good morning Bella."

"Hey Angela. Loving the weather?"

"Oh fantastic," she giggled. "Just so you are in the loop, we've got some new students in the school today. They're quite attractive, but seem to want to keep to themselves – quite similar to you when you moved I suppose."

I was never in the loop. Angela was the sole reason I didn't look like an idiot in front of most of my friends. I tended to float through the day in my own little world if I wasn't talking to people.

"Thanks Ang, how's your cat doing?"

"Fine, she's still coughing, but she spends most of the days sleeping, so she'll be better in no time." Angela smiled radiantly. She was such an optimist.

As I went to my next class with her, Jessica showed up and started asking if we knew anything about the newcomers. I was just happy I knew they existed.

The day was seriously mundane in the morning, and when lunch hit I was tired. I grabbed food as quickly as possible and went to sit with Angela at our usual table, but there were five people already there. We steered towards Mike, Eric, Ben and Jessica instead. Lauren and Tyler joined us shortly after.

"I've tried talking to them," Lauren began.

"That one's Alice, that one is Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper and Edward," Eric continued.

"They look like supermodels," Jessica jittered. "I bet the blonde has had surgery, look at that, no one gets like that ever."

"They're really clearly related, what a gene pool," Mike said.

Angela and I stayed quiet. We had an amazing relationship. Since I moved here two years ago we had been inseparable, and we both thought and acted along similar lines, making us fantastic friends. For example, we spent maybe 2 nights a month at each other's houses, but when we were together, it was a true friendship. We weren't very talkative, and neither of us pressed the other, and we were both on the top of our call lists if anything went wrong.

The others were still talking about the new additions to the tiny and uninteresting school.

"Did you guys talk this animatedly about me when I arrived?" I asked out of curiosity. The brief, awkward silence answered the question immediately.

"I didn't." Angela grinned at me. I smiled back.

"Perhaps you should all stop talking about them and try talking to them. You guys can be vicious in gossip. Does anyone know why they moved?"

Nobody spoke.

"So let's assume there was a tragic accident back where they used to live," I began weaving their imaginary tragic tale.

"Car accident. Family dead." Angela interjected perfectly.

"Exactly, and they've come here to get away from all of the horrible gossip that had spread through their homeland…"

"California." Angela added. "They've come here for peace and quiet and don't need us all harping on them and about them."

I looked over my shoulder and could see the new kids all laughing. At least they had each other. Were it not for Angela, I would have gone crazy here.

The discussion moved onto movies, essays and math. After lunch Angela and I left a little early, and were walking out when I realized I was devoid of a book bag.

"Angela – I left my stuff back in the caf, I'll be right back." I gestured towards the cafeteria with my hand and began to turn the corner, crashing into what felt like a wall, with a sickening crunch.

I fell backwards instantly and the huge kid I'd crashed into, reached out to catch me. As soon as he grabbed my wrist to pull me back up I saw waves of colour and collapsed sideways onto the floor.

When I woke back up I reaised that my wrist was broken. It hurt. A lot. But how funny was this? I walked into someone and broke my wrist. Only I could pull that off. I began laughing at myself as tears escaped my eyes from the pain of the break. I started to stand up clutching my wrist and Angela assisted, looking concerned but like she was withholding laughter too.

It was Emmett I had crashed into. He stood there with his mouth open, shocked.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. I must've been going pretty fast." He sounded like he was sing-talking. Or was I just loopy?

"No it's cool. Happens a lot." I laughed, wincing when the laughter shook my arm. Angela reaffirmed that I was indeed really clumsy, and Emmett seemed to feel a little better.

"Let me take you to the nurse or something at least."

"Sure. Ang could you grab my bag? And explain to Banner why I'm not there?"

She nodded and hugged me.

"Thanks."

"I'll check in on you soon."

So I led the way to the infirmary. It was in the same building as the lunch room so we didn't have to walk very far.

"So I'm Bella, by the way."

"I'm Emmett Cullen. Nice to meet you, though I wish I hadn't tried to kill you first." He was bouncing along beside me, looking joyous and every now and then he'd see me look and be solemn.

"Not a problem really. I'm pretty sure I've broken every bone in my body by now. I think they have a bed reserved for me down in the hospital," I laughed. He laughed too and it sounded incredible. He was so terrifying yet so teddy-bear-ish.

"My dad is working at the hospital now, so I'll tell him to keep an eye out for you."

When we got to the nurse, I insisted I was fine and that he could go to class. I told him he didn't want to make a bad impression on his first day. He guffawed and left with a 'see you soon'. I waited in the nurse's office for a few minutes, but the silence and lack of distraction made my wrist hurt really badly. I walked out to the office to ask for a lift to the hospital instead.

Mrs. Cope took me personally, lending me her cell phone so that I could notify Charlie. Charlie wasn't surprised. After a few 'Are you sure you're okay?'s and 'I will drop by the hospital in ten minutes', we hung up. It took us a while to get there because of the rain. I thanked Mrs. Cope and went inside the hospital. This wasn't our first time doing this. I said hi to Louise the receptionist and began heading toward the broken bones ward. I heard Louise chuckle behind me and call ahead to notify the on-duty doctor of my imminent arrival.

I expected to see Dr. Snow exit and begin laughing at me, but instead a youthful, insanely attractive, and brand new doctor came to visit me as I waited in the leather chairs outside of the X-ray room. This had to be Emmett's dad.

"Are you Emmett Cullen's father?" I asked shyly.

"Indeed I am. I'm Carlisle Cullen, you can call me Carlisle. You've met my family then?" He also seemed to sing as he spoke, each word pronounced so impeccably that it could never be misconstrued. He seemed at ease here already. I held out my injured wrist as we spoke and he gently ran his ice cold fingers over it.

"Only Emmett. We collided today, resulting in a quick trip to the hospital. I'd love to say it was an epic battle, or a fight, but if I could break my wrist walking into him, I can't imagine the damage he could do if he tried," I laughed and Carlisle laughed with me.

"You're right, it's broken and I can fix it in no time. We'll run a precautionary X-ray, to check for bone splinters, but it feels clean and not very inflamed."

When I came out of the X-ray room, Charlie was waiting for me.

"Bells, you have to be more careful."

"I'm sorry Dad. I was so wrapped up in trying to get my bookbag back that I didn't notice Emmett."

I smiled up at him and he shook his head, no doubt trying to imagine how he was going to protect me from walking. He'd protected me from cars by buying me a tank, (not literally – but the big red truck was essentially a car buster), he'd protected me from boys by being a cop, but I don't think he could protect me from walking.

We drove home in relative silence, and I gazed mournfully at my cast and the pain medication in my lap. Louise had commented on the fact that we might as well just keep the whole collection of morphine at our house, just in case. Was I really that bad?

Charlie was in an oddly stiff mood.

"You okay Dad?"

"Billy and I got into a fight."

I didn't ask what happened, only put my uninjured arm on his.

"I was apprehensive about the Cullen kids moving into town. I mean – 3 teenage boys strange to a new area, bound to cause trouble, but I shook off the feeling and focused on the doc and his wife. Carlisle Cullen is a highly trained and recommended surgeon, the likes Forks doesn't get. He'll be good for this town and –"

He looked down at my wrist.

"And me." I smiled accusingly.

" – and his wife is an architect, so I'm sure she can do some fixer-uppers on a few of the old buildings round here."

"Nice save."


End file.
